Until recently, DHS prioritized violent criminals and security risks for deportation. Now, all bets are off. Watch video
There is a small band of exceptional men in Middlesex County who rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Sandy for free, as part of their work with the Reformed Church of Highland Park.
There is no saintlier conduct than this. At a time when we seem to have lost our way - where distrust is the tenet of a creeping nationalism - these are the people who provide daily reminders of what it means to be good neighbors and good Americans.
Donald Trump classifies them as criminals.
They're unauthorized immigrants from places like Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka, and Kenya, many have been here for decades, and they're scared. New Jersey hasn't been targeted for deportation raids (yet) but with 500,000 such people - many under final deportation orders - it's doubtful they'll be overlooked much longer.
It's impossible to reconcile this. A full 76 percent of Republicans favor a path to citizenship. Four years ago, 68 members of the U.S. Senate voted to grant it. Yet Trump sends Immigration and Customs Enforcement into U.S. communities to round up people who have done nothing - because, as Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) put it Friday, "The order basically says anyone who is undocumented can be deported."
Now the last line of defense are houses of worship, where raids typically are against DHS policy, but nobody believes old rules apply anymore. Once, we prioritized violent criminals and security risks for deportation. Now, anything goes.
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The situation at Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale's church in Highland Park reflects what is happening statewide, and even this intrepid refugee advocate seems mortified by what's coming. So he is preparing his church - a sanctuary of hope and fear, of charity and anxiety - for the worst.
He remembers the 2006 raid in Avenel, which led to the deportation of 37 men. "None had a record," Kaper-Dale said, "but just like that, 70 kids became fatherless."
Those raids were part of a program targeting visa overstays, which was deemed a failure and suspended in 2011. By then, Kaper-Dale had made a deal with ICE that allowed 100 unauthorized Indonesian parishioners to stay while their cases were appealed. For reasons unknown, ICE let that deal expire.
A year later, with 9 parishioners facing deportation, Kaper-Dale converted his church's classrooms into bedrooms. They lived there for 11 months, until he convinced ICE to grant another stay of the order.
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Now, in the age of Trump, "it feels like we are entering a dark chapter," Sen. Robert Menendez conceded Thursday. That's the case at Reformed: One Indonesian - Harry Pangemanan, who runs the church's disaster relief program - must check in with ICE soon. Four others report in May, and they have no place to go: All are Christians, a religious minority in Indonesia, where the government demolishes churches and Islamic mobs torch Buddhist temples.
As anxiety builds, they wonder how this happened. This is no way to run a country, or live a genuinely decent American life.
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